NNIA Participation at the Kenya Paediatric Association (KPA) 12th Annual Conference
The Kenya Paediatric Association (KPA), in collaboration with the Nestlé Nutrition Institute Africa (NNIA), brought together one of the largest gathering of paediatricians from Kenya and the East African countries to deliberate on the various issues affecting child health care at the Association’s 12th Annual conference, held between 13 and 16 April in Mombasa, Kenya.
Announcing the conference date in Nairobi, Kenya Paediatric Association Chairman, Prof Were said: “This year’s conference will focus on re-evaluating challenges faced in child health care and put a spotlight on non-communicable childhood diseases.” Indeed, the conference involved discussions around the recent practices in neurology, endocrinology, oncology, child and adolescent psychiatry, paediatric critical care, vaccinology, and paediatric rheumatology, among other issues.
Prof Anabwani delivering his speech at the NNIA symposium
The NNIA Chairman, Prof Anabwani, was the keynote speaker at the event. He started by elaborating on the causes of morbidity and mortality in children. He mentioned the establishment of the Child Health Epidemiology Reference Group (CHERG) by WHO in 2001, as a means to develop estimates of the proportion of deaths in children under five years attributable to pneumonia, diarrhoea, malaria, measles, and other major causes of neonatal deaths. With the exception of malaria, the greatest communicable disease killers were similar in all WHO regions. Of all global deaths attributable to malaria, 94% occurred in the Africa region. Under-nutrition was an underlying cause of 53% of all deaths in children younger than five years.
Prof Anabwani made a critical evaluation of the global interventions and strategies in reducing child mortality, including the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). “The child survival challenges that pertained in 1978 are largely still with us today, with the sinister addition of HIV/Aids,” said Prof Anabwani. He also stressed that with a few exceptions in Botswana, Mauritius and Seychelles, improvements in child mortality and morbidity have been both modest and fickle in sub-Saharan Africa. He compared child health in Africa to that of western countries. In the west, child health improved and mortality and morbidity rates fell rapidly and have remained low without the global interventions; Prof Anabwani then highlighted that reduced mortality rates came with the following trends:
1. Industrialisation and improved food production through mechanised agriculture
2. Improved sanitation, education, social infrastructure, trade and social justice
3. Internal energies and national government commitment
As an end note, Prof Anabwani called for more effective strategies in reducing mortality in children younger than five years in sub-Saharan Africa through a concerted national effort, mostly towards improving basic infrastructure and achieving equitable and just distribution of income.
The conference featured a NNIA symposium on Childhood Nutrition on 15 April. In addition to the conference delegates, this workshop was attended by members of the newly formed East Africa Paediatric Association (EAPA), composed of delegates from Uganda, Ethiopia, Sudan, Tanzania, Rwanda and Eritrea.
“The Institute fosters ‘science for better nutrition’ because we are convinced that innovative, science-based nutrition can help enhance the quality of people’s lives all over the world and that’s why NNIA participated in the KPA’s annual conference,” said Prof. Anabwani.
Participants of KPA also had the opportunity to learn more about the NNIA and its services.
